Me and the dogs kill plenty of pheasant each year here in PA. But they're not wild birds, they're all stocked by the Game Commission.

sounds like ditch chickens were once a religion.sure is sad what it is now.but they do taste goooood.

Yes Lugnut it really did not matter where you hunted in those days .If you made the effort you where going to have birds to shoot at .We had four hunters in our group and one of them lived on a small private property that adjoined a local game lands It was in about the center of a large area that was game lands . So while everyone else was parked along a public road and walking a half mile or more we where waiting in the back yard for it to be 9:00 .On that morning we had taken maybe 3 or 4 steps into the field and a rooster flushed and was taken . On the way to pick it up another flushed and the same guy killed that also .In less than 2 minutes and 10 yards of walking his limit was filled . Multiple flushes where the normal and while I never did it or seen anyone else do it we came close many times to get a double on roosters over those times hunting wild birds . IT was so many of them that the farmers hated them They would intentionalaly run them over if they saw them along the road

While it is not like hunting wild birds if you have a bird hunting dog it is about the only thing you can do .Other than go to a preserve And I am not saying that is wrong just you are still hunting pen raised birds . I had some enjoyable hunts the past several years hunting pen raised birds on public land with my dog And some years ago I got on a plane and flew to Kansas City Missouri ,rented a car drove to southwest Iowa and spent 3 perfect great days hunting wild birds . But I can't do that every week for 5 weeks in a row

There are still good numbers of grouse and woodcock in the area around my camp in north-central PA West Side.

It adds some variety to flushing Chinese chickens all day.

The dogs don't care. As long as its a bird and they can hunt it, they're happy. In fact, same goes for me! LOL

On one gameland not far from my camp you're as likely to flush a grouse as you are a stocked pheasant. There are good numbers of both.

I've always enjoyed upland bird hunting more than deer hunting.

I can't, it has been to long ago I don't remember! LOL

Gas wars of the 1970's. I remember gas was 19 cents a gallon!

Same time frame pheasants everywhere. Even in the town where I lived. Now where I live( same general area I lived in years ago) IF you see a bird its a holy crap moment.

I did see 1 a week ago. 1st bird I've seen in about a year.

Back then we had ZERO turkeys. Now way more turkeys then pheasants.

We had a few deer then. Now they're here to stay.

My dad, a WWI army sergeant, received a mustering-out bonus and used it to buy a 1/4 section of land on the east bank of Arkansas's White River about 4 miles downstream from the town of Clarendon, circa 1935. He and a friend cut ash logs, had them sawed, and built a house on a "high" ridge 100' or so from the river. There were no flood control dams on the river at that time and there would be flooding every Spring, so he elevated the house 4' on cypress blocks. Born in 1931, my early trapping was during WWII. Dad had 18 1-1/2 long springs and 4 or 5 #2 DLS. He had very little trapping knowledge and I had less. I did catch a few coon and possums plus a couple of mink each year. One mink brought $24 in 1944, and that was big money then.

Spring and Summer I would use trot lines for catfish and would also "dig" and sell muscle shells that were used to make pearl buttons (before plastic buttons came along). Dad was a button cutter, worked in Clarendon, and came home week-ends. Because of flooring there were no roads to our place; travel was by 2-cycle single-cylinder powered wooden boat, 1 one hour trip upriver.

Working from a paddle boat one Spring while our land was covered with flood waters I put a trot line across the ridge by our house. Checking that line one day I had 2 drowned cotton mouths on hooks 2' apart. I guess with hook shanks keeping their mouths open the current was too much for them. I cut off those hooks without touching the snakes.

I "helped" my grandfather build a houseboat then a couple of years later lived on with he and grandma after flood waters washed dad's house off those cypress blocks.

I dropped out of school in the 5th grade, home schooling, military service, college (Kansas State and LSU) and work interrupted my trapping until 1978.

Great story Furvor.

Not much of a story but my grandfather drove an electric truck delivering baked goods in the 20's and 30's in Brooklyn. His route was only several blocks as most people got some delivered back then. Took him all day to only do several blocks as there was a lot of customers per block. Dugans bakery.

And you thought Tesla's were something new.

Back in my school boy days almost every kid had a bike and rode it to school. My friends and I after school would find ourselves riding our bikes BMX style, near the dirt trails we rode there was a small local farm. On many occasions I would hear pheasants cackle, having a burning desire to learn about wildlife I made my way to the local hunting and fishing shop asking if I could “call pheasants” the shop owner seemed to think so and just happened to have a “Mallardtone” pheasant call in stock I planned my return trip to purchase one with my paper route money. I couldn’t wait to try my new call out, got my self set up next to a old blown down huge oak, within a few minutes I had my first pheasant 15’ from me! what excitement that was!
I went back to the hunting and fishing shop and told the owner of my success he quickly convinced me to try getting a predator call, I didn’t quite have the success as I did calling pheasants. I gave the predator call to one of my Uncles (he was a prankster) and he carried that call in his pocket for many, many years and every party, wedding, Christmas and family get together Uncle Bob would inevitably play a few “tunes” on the call annoying almost everyone (except me) the dogs included…


,.,.

In the seventies I worked for a sheep guide in the Romanzoff mountains in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I was alone coming back to base camp through a small narrow valley. It was absolutely beautiful and pristine country. It was a warm day and I had my coat hung on the back of my pack. I had crossed a crystal clear creek several times descending the drainage when almost reaching the main valley, I noticed something bright orange in the creek sweeping by me. It was my reversible orange and camouflage coat which evidently had fallen off my pack the last time I crossed the creek about a mile up. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

During Thanksgiving school break I and a friend were invited to hunt quail in southeastern Kansas. We were finding birds for 2 days. The third and last day was very windy and the birds had disappeared. Hunting for hours without seeing a bird, we were bored as we walked up to the side of a ravine. There was a rabbit down in the ravine and we decided to all shoot at the same time. When we fired a large covey of quail flew up from bottom of the ravine. We were so surprised that none of got off a shot at a bird.

Back in '65 I had a little rat trapping line on a small river near my home. I'd catch 5 to 10 rats a day until they were trapped out. It was winter and cold so I decided to start taking them down in the furnace room to skin and stretch. After a week or so my Mom started complaining to my Dad something in the house stunk. When I got home from school on that particular day, I was met by a very angry father who'd had to carry two five gallon buckets of crusty rat carcusses out of the house. I was very sternly, and I mean sternly, cautioned that if that was ever to happen again, I might want to consider moving to somewhere near Egypt. Funny thing is, ten years later, my wife issued the same ultimatum.

My father was born 1917 , fought the war in the Gilbert / Philippine Islands.
Told many interesting stories about his youth.
He told stories of walking the hardwoods on north side of the Big Manistee river and not seeing a deer track for few years..
He always said it was a direct result of hungry people during the Big Depression.
1936 I believe was the first year that they reopened deer season in Wexford / Grand Traverse county line area.
.That year it reopened his family and the neighbors took 7 bucks off the hill we call Moonshine Hill, in by the High Roll-away on opening day.

I have not been up there in years, but the Traverse City museum did have a very splendid artifact / arrowhead collection gifted from a doctor tagged as "Summit City".
These were a partial payment to the doctor from my Grandmother "Bessie Hudson" .
My Father, Carl was hit in the face lower/ jaw area with a Double Bit axehead that had flew off when stacking wood his older brother was splitting. He carried that scar his entire life.
My Grandmother got most of these artifacts trading with the natives.
They visited the farm often i was told, looking for food supplies, as it set on one of the major cross-country trails between river and Grand Traverse Bay
I have seen the bent tree trail marker many times , down on the Anderson Creek flats.

Back in the day----

here where I live we had rabbits and quail everywhere. Very few deer
Now we have deer everywhere and very few rabbits and even fewer quail.

Hunting land was easy to obtain. Farms, creek bottoms and the train engineers just waved as they went by us as we hunted along the tracks. Some even stopped and asked if we would sell them a rabbit or two. We never sold any, but gave several away.

Now you will get a ticket or arrested if on the tracks. most farmers won't let anyone on their land, and the creek bottoms are full of houses.


We used to camp alot. I mean like every weekend we were off camping somewhere. One lake we camped was pretty close to Menard Federal prison. The ranger told everyone that if we heard hounds at night to stay in our campers because it could be the guards running down an escapee. One night he woke dad up like 3:00 in the morning to warn him that a prisoner was loose and coming our way. I woke up to and listened to the hounds across the lake. The dude tried to swim the lake and was caught as he came out of the water less than 1/4 mile from our camp. Next day the ranger asked dad why we didn't leave as all the other campers had. Dad looked at him and said "why would we leave?" That sob got close enough he would have found a load of lead from my shotgun" The ranger just laughed and walked away.

I had an uncle who was a CB during WW2. He was on a ship going to, I think Wake Island, to be part of building an airstrip. It may have been another island, I can't recall for sure. I do recall we had taken the island once, got booted off, and was retaking it. Anyway. He would say "ya can't sink an island" "we shot that hunk of rock and dirt for days" "wasn't nuttin much left of it" but it didn't sink".
His main job while there was building and welding steel plates around the cabs of their equipment to make them as bullet proof as possible. He would always end his story with " no sir, can't sink an island and ya can't kill the japs on one with artillery"

My Grandfather was born in 1903, the 2nd oldest of 18 children. He went to work with his father in the coal mines near Snow Shoe....low coal, hand loaded.....you undercut with a pick, drilled with a breast auger, shot the face with black powder, and shoveled up the shot coal into one ton cars that you pushed to the face. Worked the logging camps in the summer when there was no market for coal. Both were hard and dangerous jobs.

He married in 1921, and raised a family of 4 kids through the Great Depression. He would kill deer to feed the family....he’d start to hunt in early August. He would go out on foot, carrying his .250 Savage and some canvas sacks. When he found and killed a deer, he’d hang it in a tree, skin it and bone it out. The meat was packed home in the canvas sacks, his rifle was a take down model, which he would stuff in the game bag of coat, if it was cold enough to wear one. Much of the meat was canned at home. He had a cubby dug out in the cellar of the house , hidden pretty well, where he would stash a couple hundred quarts of venison. My mother recalled that when she was young, most meals were venison.

They also raised a few pigs, had chickens, a couple hives of bees, and a huge garden. In the summer, the children were sent out to pick huckleberries, elderberries, and blackberries, which were either canned, or sometimes sold on a Saturday morning in downtown Bellefonte.

When I was a kid in the 60s, my Grandfather would talk to me at length about mining, cutting timber, smoking hams, cutting bee trees, and hunting. I was fascinated by his stories, and leather miners cap, his crosscut saw and the .250 Savage now belong to me. I was lucky to have had known him and learned much from him.

I still miss my grandad too Bigbrownie


I was herding a 359 peterbilt west on I80 near Snowshoe about 84-85. Lots of road construction. Had that west bound side down to one lane and a solid wall of concrete barricades on each side of the lanes. You may remember that? Anyway a bear crawled over that barricade, got out in the road and was promptly hit by the semi in front of me. Busted the radiator pretty good and got all balled up under that truck. We had to sit there quite awhile. Got a guy going east to say over the CB he would call the highway patrol when he got to a phone.